Bishkek - conclusion
Bishkek, final destination of my amazing trip through Eurasia. We spent our time relaxing, chilling in sovietic parks full of status, getting lost in the Osh bazaar, eating in great restaurants... We even went for a Thai massage, real blessing after all those hikes, uncomfortable transports and shak...
Son kul
Some locals had tried to discourage us to go to Son Kul. They told us the place was not worth it, that there was only "sand and sun". They all prefer Sary Chelek. We certainly have very different taste than them. Those 4 days of horse riding around the lake were definitely one of the main highlights...
Osh
Back to Osh after an early bus from Sary Mogol. Our only memory of this city was the bargain with the annoying minibus drivers. Time to see more of the city! Osh is the 2nd biggest city of Kyrgyzstan. It had been a major stop on the silk road, and has the oldest bazaar of the country. We enjoyed the...
Pamir Range hike
Total disconnection for 3 days in the Pamir range. The place is supposed to be crowded during high season, full of alpinists attempting the ascent of Lenin Peak (7100m). We saw no one. Only 1 French hiker, and hundreds of marmots. The first day, we walked 8km before setting up our base camp, at 4000...
Charvak
We did not really know what to expect in Charvak. We read quickly on internet that it was possible to hike there, and to do some water activities. We needed a bit of nature after this week of city-touring, that seemed the perfect place, but things did not happen exactly the way we were expecting......
Kungrad
Another 10 hours by train. Uzbek women were dressed with colorful dress, and a small piece of fabric tied in their hair. We got woken up twice: before the border by the Kazak customs, and after by the Uzbek customs. The process was similar on both sides: military walking in uniform in the wagon, che...
Bozhira
Gulmira, our Kasak friend from Georgia, gave us the contact of Eduard to be our guide to explore the desert. He was a real Teddy bear, super nice and calm, by far the cheapest option we could find. His English was as weak as our Russian, but we somehow could communicate together. We drove 4h with a...
Aktau
First "stan" country! After a small necessary flight teleportation. We were then in a totally different world. Everything is flat, dry and salty on this side of the Caspian Sea. Cities are huge and empty, populated only by cubical sovietic buildings and big cars. The seaside is sad, polluted, and sm...
Tbilisi
We took a super slow and cheap train from Kutaisi to Tbilisi: 5h40 for 200km, less than 3€ each. A good moment to plan the coming travels. We started to draft an itinerary through Iran, we wrote a to-do list for these 2 days, things like "Julien should go to the barber to get rid of his beard before...
Kutaisi
After a 6-hours bus, we arrived in Kutaisi, 3rd biggest city of Georgia. It was pouring rain. We walked a bit through the city, went in the market, had a look at the famous church and went back to our hostel, totally soaked. While checking our options to go to Azerbaïdjan, we realised that the land...
Bogreshi
After almost 100h of transport for the last 8 days (52h of boat, 33h of bus, 6h of train), it was finally time to exercise a bit our rusted legs for the first hike of our trip. Mestia is known as the Mecca of hikers in Georgia, with more than 100 hikers starting daily their walk to Ushguli. But we w...
Mestia
The 7-hour journey by minibus to Mestia was quite funny. We were no longer in Europe: plenty of holes on the road, animals walking freely on the way, cars totally smashed, with the wheel sometimes on the left side, sometimes on the right side... In the minibus, there was an interesting mix of nation...
Batumi
We entered the cargo ship at around 10pm, ready to meet our cabin companions. From the beginning, people were insisting that we will be with 2 truck drivers in the cabin. When pushing the door or our cabin, it was a surprise to meet again the Austrian cyclist! (Monika is her name) One hour later, Ol...
Pavel Bania
Not very efficient day of hitchhiking: 4 rides for not even 100km. Our first ride was a local from Koprivshtitsa, he was obviously not speaking a word of English. We waited 40 long minutes to be picked by our second ride: an Iranian guy working as a marble importer from Iran to Bulgaria. A good occa...
Koprivshtitsa
After 3 hours of train (super old train), we arrived at this tiny train station 10km away from the city Koprivshtitsa. A friendly gay couple (French-Bulgarian) picked us up after less than 2 min waiting, and drove us in the city. Koprivshtitsa is a small city famous for its history: here, the rebell...
Sofia
While passing the border of Bulgaria (with annoying custom asking stupid questions), we talked briefly to an old woman cyclist from Austria. She told us she was starting the silk road, and was on her way to Burgas to catch the ferry for Georgia. Really? Isn't there a war going on? Apparently not, th...
Belgrade
After 20 hours of bus including very few hours of sleep, we arrived in Belgrade. Back to the Balkans! In Belgrade men are strong, women have dyed hair, and people eat meat 3 times per day. A bit dizzy after our short night of sleep, we wandered from park to Marko was our host from Couchsurfing. We...